around the fire
by eglantine-br
Summary: It is the end of the day, around the fire. Somebody has gone shopping... Please review


"You sent the bard to do our marketing." Sten said, "The results may prove ---unpalatable. " He shifted his weight to the other foot, and squinted into the sun.

"Here she comes now. We shall see."

"I have gotten everything on the list." Lelianna called. "And I have gotten more." Sten scowled, the bard was dancing on her toes with repressed excitement. "I shall cook tonight." She added.

"Pasharra – at least it is Ogren's turn you are taking."

The light dimmed. Zevran added pine to the fire. It flared, from smoky low to yellow and fat. He settled with deadly grace, beside the heat of it. The others straggled in, in ones and twos. He found as he watched them, a warmth in his gut that was new to him. It was not the coiling and quickening lift that he had felt to often. This bore no resemblance to the thrill of a bodily contest. This was a baffled affection that warmed more like the smoored and smokey day-fire.

Peace at last, and now? Zevran, you are a fool. He said this to himself, but he pulled up his knees to hold the warm a little closer.

Lelianna waited as the last of the companions straggled to the fire circle. Then, as she had done so often, she pulled the skeins of attention to herself. She drew in their eyes, and their thoughts, confident as a boatman, with a net of silvery fish.

"Tonight I have something special planned." She said. "I found some unusual things for sale at the market today. I shall cook Orlesian style."

"Cheese sauce?" This was Alistair.

"Yes Alistair, there is cheese sauce, made with a fine Orlesian cheese. I have bread cubes on sticks to dip into it. But I thought we would begin with the other two items. The first, I at least have had before. Zevran, you may also be conversant.'

Zevran grinned and quirked a brow at her. "Dear lady this grows – interesting."

Lelianna smiled back. "What I have here is an Orlesian wine. It is known as Champanya, it is hard to find, and is, by tradition imbibed from the shoe of a virgin."

"I have had it once, indeed." Zevran said. "But given my circumstances, and location, I was forced to use a cup."

"Given the state of the socks and the feet I have seen today, even among our virgins, I think it would be more prudent, and hygienic, to do the same." Wynne said.

"So we shall." Lelianna said "Cups out everyone."

"Save those boots for knocking!" Ogrhren called out across the flames.

Elissa ducked her reddening face against Alistair's pauldron. He pulled her closer with his free hand, and set his cup on his knee. That boy might make a king after all, Oghren thought. How about that...

Cullen found himself drifting back, his awareness had ranged away again, obviously. He never seemed to catch the drifting away, only the returning. Gregoir had warned him of this, in those days after the-- well, after the tower. It was something to do with the integration of traumatic memories in the brain. "You've been through something bad, my boy" Irving had said. He and Gregoir had been standing above Cullen's bed that day. It had been a strange bed, somewhere quiet and soft, not the templar's barracks.

"You may find yourself loosing bits of time, you may feel yourself strangely distant from people and events. Don't let it worry you. This is how we heal." The eyes above him had been so kind.

After that, Cullen slept, slept for what seemed forever. And he awoke to find himself, with new orders, and his time in the tower was over. That had been a week ago. His memories since then had been crumpled things. Some events seemed too fast, some were viscously slow. More disturbing, some were just – missing. And, too, it felt strange to be living in safety, in a healing body, just like everyone else.

Cullen took a deep slow breath, and tried to focus on now, as Gregoir had taught him. The fire was warm at his feet. Maybe he should offer up a boot... But no. The Champanya bottle was headed his way. He lifted his cup. The liquid was strange and crisp. He got the cup empty in time, filled it again, and passed the bottle on.

He lost a little more time after that, but it seemed to have more to do with the wine climbing the inside of his nose than it did with any recent trauma. Lelianna was singing, and Zev was joining in:

"_In Antiva there lived a maid, mark well what I do say,_

_ In Antiva there lived a maid, and she was mistress of her trade_

_ I'll go no more a-roving with you fair maid."_

The chorus was easy to pick up, and soon everyone was joining in, leaving the verses to the Antivan and the bard.

_"And when I kissed her on the mouth --- "Lelianna_ sang

"_She asked if I'd go further South," _Zevran responded.

"_I'll go no more a-roving with you fair maid."_

The song came to an end with a ragged cheer, and Lelianna rose to her feet again. " Time for the next thing I believe." She said.

"This I have not tried before, I have never even heard of it. It claims to be 'Nuggets of Joy, the Exploding Snack. Ready in a Jiffy.' H mm, what is a jiffy? The treat comes in this box, which I am assured goes directly into the flames. Does anyone know anything about it? No?"

Shrugging, Lelianna set it into the fire. The box was made of soft metal, beaten thin, and folded strangely. The fire did not consume it. For a time nothing at all seemed to happen. Then there was a sudden explosive POP. Then another. Lelianna started to snatch it back. "

"No," Morrigan said. "Wait. I think we wait."

The pops came faster and faster, and the box began to swell and distort. Everyone was watching now, with curiosity and no little alarm. Slowly the noises tapered off. Lelianna extracted the box with a stick. It was twice previous size, and black with soot.

"Oh, I think we must have done it wrong" Morrigan said. "Tis ruined."

"No, look," Said Wynne. "The things, the nuggets-things, they changed in the heat. They were hard and small before. I heard them rattling. Now look. Oh, It is like eating snow."

"I think Lelianna should always take Ogren's turn to cook." Alistair said. "This Jiffy snow snack is, just, just awesome!" He held the box out to Elissa who took a big handful.

"I was planning lichen soup.' Ogren said, "But this is good too."

"And," Alistair added, "We haven't even had the cheese on sticks yet."

"Let's have more of that wine first." Sten said."I wish to reexamine the attack it made upon the center of my face."

Cullen lost a little more time after that. He came back to fingers scorched with cheese, and the feeling of his face tight with the friendly heat of the fire. He was full tonight, full of strangeness; full of wine that belonged in boots, and cheese that belonged on sticks, and snow snacks that came from the center of a burning flame.

He felt full too, of something he had no name for. But he felt that it was good.

'


End file.
